Now that American Pharoah has captured the first Triple Crown in
decades, many are wondering what that means for the future of horse
racing, and of the colt himself. The New York Times's Joe Drape believes
the feat will give horse racing "a badly needed shot in the arm," with
no indication of whether the hypodermic metaphor is meant to be ironic.
American Pharoah's trainer, Bob Baffert, said he wants the horse to race
as long as possible, though he did give a nod to the idea of letting
the three-year-old quit while he's ahead.
Here's my wish: That American Pharoah goes out on a high note, and with him, the entire sport of horse racing.
Frankly,
it's a wonder that horse racing has lasted this long. Idealists would
point to the sport's long history in this country and to the unique
place horses occupy in the American consciousness. But save for a few
big races each year that are ultimately more cultural events and excuses
to drink than marquee athletic showcases, the sport has been on a
steady decline. And despite its blue-blood reputation, the "sport of
kings" is really just the sport of vice, kept afloat by a system of
gambling and doping that amounts to institutionalized animal abuse.
The
main controversy today is over an anti-bleeding drug known as Lasix. In
the U.S., it's often administered on the day of the race, along with up
to 26 other permitted substances; race-day medications are banned in
almost every other country. Several top trainers have banded together to
push for a plan to ban race-day medications in the U.S., citing the
negative effects on the health of the animal and the reputation of the
sport. Those resistant to change, including the New York Thoroughbred
Horsemen's Association, claim that injecting drugs is actually good for a
horse's health.
This
argument about what's "best" for the horses blatantly overlooks the
sport's role in endangering their health in the first place. Lasix is
used to treat bleeding in the lungs, a condition called exercise induced
pulmonary hemorrhage. EIPH is for the most part found only in racing
animals, camels and greyhounds as well as horses. There are two theories
of what causes EIPH in horses — that is, the mechanism by which
hemorrhaging occurs — but as the disease's name would suggest, it's
undoubtedly related to abnormally strenuous physical activity. You can
debate the benefits of Lasix all you want, but it's clear the best thing
for a horse's health would be to keep him off the track.
Horse racing is inherently cruel, and the problems
start, literally, from birth: As the Indianapolis Star's Gregg Doyel
notes, we should expect nothing less than physical breakdown from an
animal bred to sustain an abnormally muscular carriage on
skinnier-than-usually legs. What you don't see behind the veil of
seersucker and mint juleps are the thousands of horses that collapse
under the weight of their science-project bodies. This weekend at
Belmont, all eyes on American Pharoah meant nobody was paying attention
to Helwan, the four-year-old French colt who had to be euthanized on the
track after breaking his left-front cannon bone. It was Helwan's first
time racing on Lasix.
Helwan's breakdown is by no means an
outlier. In 2008, a national audience watched in horror as Eight Belles
collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line at the Kentucky
Derby with two broken ankles and had to be immediately euthanized. In
2006, then-undefeated Barbaro suffered a similar injury at the Preakness
and was eventually put down as well.
In 2012, the New York
Times conducted a thorough investigation of the dangers of racing and
the unchecked doping that furthers the risks, revealing that, "24 horses
die each week at racetracks across America." From 2009 to 2012, 6,600
horses suffered injuries or breakdowns. In that same period, 3,600
horses died at state-regulated tracks.
It's easy for the public to
overlook these facts. Most Americans only care about horse racing
during the month-long Triple Crown season. And just as in sports played
by humans, the high-profile stars get all the attention while the plight
of the little guy goes ignored. The horses at the most risk are cheaper
animals competing in lower-tier races, known as claiming races.
According to the Times, horses in claiming races suffer injuries or
breakdowns at a 22-percent higher rate than upper-tier horses, partially
because drug regulation is much more lax than on the Triple Crown
circuit.
It's true that abuses and safety concerns exist to
varying degrees across all sports. But the more we have learned about
health risks in football and hockey, and of performance-enhancing drug
use in baseball and cycling, the more we stepped up our efforts to
rectify the problems. As football players learn of the game's long-term
health dangers, many rethink their participation. But this exposes
racing's fundamental ill: A horse can't consent.
"He's the one
that won — it wasn't me," Baffert said after American Pharoah's win at
Belmont, reminding us who the athlete really is in racing: "It was the
horse." It's time to rethink a sport in which the athlete has no say in
the terms of his participation.
Kavitha Davidson writes about sports for Bloomberg View.
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